Gabby Douglas Reportedly Breaks Down After Social Media Bullying

Photo Credit: Tom Pennington/Getty Images

Imagine you’re at the 2016 Olympics, representing Team USA on the women’s gymnastics team and everything is going your way. You’re helping the team win medals, you’re winning medals, but now even though you have put in the hard work, you’re being criticized and ridiculed over irrelevant things. Welcome to the life of Gabby Douglas who is reportedly being bullied by internet trolls.

Douglas’s mother Natalie Hawkins spoke out about the bullying to Reuters, “She’s had to deal with people criticizing her hair, or people accusing her of bleaching her skin. They said she had breast enhancements, they said she wasn’t smiling enough, she’s unpatriotic. Then it went to not supporting your teammates. Now you’re “Crabby Gabby.”

Douglas had just completed her final event and during her final interview it was clear she was holding back tears.  When asked what was wrong, she admitted that the hateful comments made on the internet about her are starting to get to her and she is reportedly “heartbroken” over how mean people are.  Once she left the press area, she burst into tears in a corner by herself.  Her teammates came over to console her, but it was clear this was a deep wound.

People criticizing Gabby over little things is really annoying, because she didn’t do anything wrong. If she was smiling too much, people would be worrying about her or wondering why she was so happy while she was sitting instead of participating. Either way, she wouldn’t have been able to win because these bullies would have gone after Gabby because that’s exactly what they are.

If she’s unpatriotic, what does that make the rest of us? Just because she didn’t put her hand over her heart, she’s suddenly “unpatriotic”?  That makes no sense at all, because she is competing for Team USA and trying to help the team win medals to make the rest of us feel patriotic. How does any of that make sense because, to me, it sounds completely ridiculous.

Her mother also followed up by saying what every fan is thinking, “You name it and she got trampled. What did she ever do to anyone?” Gabby Douglas didn’t do anything and she’s getting criticized for every little thing she does. It makes me sick to think that an Olympian can’t even be celebrated because people are too worried about what she’s doing or not doing. If anyone has a problem with Gabby Douglas, they should be considered unpatriotic because they are the ones not supporting the US at the Olympics.